Decibel’s most anticipated albums of 2014: The unauthorised Deciblog addendum

Consider this here, folks, as an unofficial, off-the-cuff (read: poorly researched and impulsive) addendum to Decibel #112’s Top 20 2014 preview. This being the Internet, consider the following dispatch to be largely free of firm facts such as album/song titles, empirical data (release dates), and official words to corroborate our conjecture as to when said albums will appear and—perhaps more crucially—what they will sound like. Now, no doubt primed from issue #112’s forecast of box office releases from blue-chip heavyweights such as Behemoth, Napalm Death, Mastodon and Triptykon, make sure you spare some of your disposable income for the following fistful of metal . . .

CORPSESSED
TITLE: ABYSMAL THRESHOLDS
LABEL: DARK DESCENT
RELEASE DATE: Feb 4th
Pre-order here
Another slice of unrelenting morbidity from Finland, Corpsessed’s debut LP is the year’s first essential death metal release. Anyone who enjoys the sort of necrotic register the likes of Krypts and Vorum occupy should be able to get down to Jyri Lustig and Matti Mäkelä’s decomposed riff-work. Abysmal Threshold’s is full of harrowing tracks—but perhaps the atonal doom-death epic “Necrosophic Chaneling” is already a highlight, an epic that winds itself into to weird chaotic blasts and guitars that pay little heed to one other; they just seem to coalesce around Niko Matilainen’s leonine roar. Awesome stuff.

MITOCHONDRION
TITLE: TBA
LABEL PROFOUND LORE/DARK DESCENT
RELEASE DATE: SUMMER (Maybe)
Whatever Vancouver’s most vitriolic do next, it is most likely to pull death metal through the wormhole and change its physiology entirely. Once refracted through their tortured consciousness, genres don’t really mean much, as their gravitational pull hauls in elements of black metal and outré metal in a chaotic sound that could really only be theirs. They have already sounded a warning of where their sound will go next—a few months ago we posted the demo for “Writhen unto Abraxas” right here on the Deciblog. Who knows when album number three will be released but if they had demo tracks ready back in November, an early summer release could be on the cards. Here’s hoping. Catch them in action at MDF 2014.

TEITANBLOOD
TITLE: DEATH (TBA)
LABEL: NORMA EVANGELIUM DIABOLI
RELEASE DATE: SUMMER (TBA)
It has been almost four years since Spain’s premiere black/death metal kvtlists released their debut full-length, Seven Chalices, with only two tracks released across two EPs in the meantime. Yeah, sure, those tracks were real epics, but considering just months after the release of Seven Chalices guitarist/vocalist Nsk was telling Voices of the Darkside that there was material already written, this album has been a long time coming. Details at the moment are sketchy. Indeed, you could file this under unsubstantiated rumor, but TeitanBlood.com sends you to a holding page marked “Death”, and check this out on Norma Evangelium Diaboli’s homepage . . . Something is going to drop, but whether it is an album or another EP, time will tell.

DEAD CONGREGATION
TITLE: TBA
LABEL: NUCLEAR WAR NOW! PRODUCTIONS
RELEASE DATE: SPRING
Speaking of bands who have fallen off the radar and into the fathomless sink-hole of inactivity, Greek old-school death metallers Dead Congregation have been conspicuous by their absence since 2008 debut, Graves of the Archangels. Given that it was a record of perfectly pitched old-school putrescence, gore-hounds, rivethounds and death heads the world were jonesing for new material as soon as it dropped. None came. But lo, their Facebook page posted some tantalizing art emblazoned with “2014 The fall is imminent . . .” meaning that, surely, the wait could be over.

ANAAL NATHRAKH
TITLE: TBA
LABEL: TBA
RELEASE DATE: SPRING
Mick Kenney announced yesterday that a new Nathrakh album is in gestation and heralded its development with a picture of a whole bunch of potential songtitles. Sure, some of them will no doubt change before the release is firmed up and finalized, but we kinda hope they call the album Txtbook Nathrakh. But then Crust Necro sounds pretty catchy too. “The soundtrack for Armageddon, the audial essence of evil, hatred and violence, the true spirit of necro taken to its musical extremes . . . ” Anaal Nathrakh have yet to welch on their mission statement, even though Mick Kenney has now swapped the bleak, concrete grey of Birmingham, England, for the sunshine of California. But then Dave Hunt’s disposition and necro-throat is never going to lend itself to surf-pop and vocal harmonies. Don’t expect Pet Sounds.